BACK HOME FOR A WHILE. Costa Rica was nice, as usual, but it’s good to be done with travel for a while. I won’t clutter this post with photos of my latest trip down there, since you’ll only be jealous. Or maybe not; perhaps bright sunny mornings with temperatures around 70, flowers everywhere, and fresh fruit and pastries for breakfast don’t mean anything to you. Did I mention the coffee there is fabulous?

I got in a couple of runs, Thursday morning’s being the most memorable, as it included an attempt at a hill with at least a 20 degree grade. (While that may not sound like much, it’s very hard on cars, and feels more like a 45 degree angle when running it.) I’m not going to tell you how often I paused to catch my breath, but I got to the top. The rest of the day I spent jammed into various airplane seats or waiting in line for yet another passport check, so I was grateful for the memory of that morning run.

This morning was just 8 miles easy with the PR Fitness group, since I’m running the Shamrocks & Shenanigans 5k Sunday morning, and I’ll be giving it another shot at finishing under 20:00. As my typical Saturday run is 12 miles or more, it felt a bit odd to be stopping early, but the idea is to save energy for the race. My legs still felt a bit creaky from the hillwork down south, so I did a little work on them with the foam roller, which helped – or maybe it was just that it felt so good when I stopped.

On the cooking front, I hit the kitchen pretty hard this weekend, creating some meals for my daughter at Western Michigan. Between her classes and work schedule, she hasn’t had time to eat very well. While she, like many typical college students, somehow survives and even thrives on ramen noodles and Diet Coke, a little real food is welcome now and then. Along with a potato-leek tart that I shared in an earlier post, I made a batch of spaghetti sauce with ground turkey, and steak tips with a portobello mushroom sauce served with brown rice. I added a little lowfat sour cream to make the taste reminiscent of beef stroganoff. For dessert I made a bread pudding with banana and chopped dates, using an ancient baguette I had saved for just such an occasion. The last two I am claiming toward my “50 new recipes” goal this month.

Got to go. Busy day Sunday, and one hour less to boot.